Kou Tong in his alternative getup turned his head and got a clear look at the two people standing at the hospital room door. He immediately smiled like spring sunshine. The cat standing on the wall, however, as a stray cat that had to to fend for itself, naturally had to have a slightly higher IQ than a house cat that runs when it sees a mouse. It seemed to sense danger instinctively, yowled, and leapt down from the wall, not having time to eat the instant noodles. 

Huang Jinchen, smelling a hospital room full of instant noodle scent, looking at Kou Tong swaying like an unsteady bamboo pole, wondered how this person could still be smiling more brightly than a lucky cat. No doubt he would have luck making money if he hung out with him. 

Kou Tong, with one leg lame, hopped over vigorously on the other leg. He turned out to be very agile. General Zhong was shaken by the sight and quickly went to hold him up, but Dr. Kou didn’t appreciate the kindness at all. He gracefully felt around in General Zhong’s pocket. At lightning speed, he fished out his wallet. “Hey, instructor, why are you always so polite? Coming to visit the sick is one thing, why bring presents?” 

Huang Jinchen stood by watching, gasping in admiration. He determined that his future colleague was an eccentric. 

General Zhong wasn’t annoyed in the least. He very calmly said, “There’s a compensation payment in there. While you weren’t injured on the job, the base believes that you were still serving the people, so the compensation has been approved.” 

So, with one leg in its cast held up, Kou Tong leaned against a wall, took out a stack of Grandpa Maos, and began to count, his technique practiced enough to stand comparison to a bank teller. 

For the sake of his own future personal safety, Huang Jinchen couldn’t resist putting in a question: “How did you get injured?” 

“Racing,” General Zhong said. 

Dr. Kou said, “Heh-heh, how embarrassing for me.” 

Huang Jinchen looked Dr. Kou’s skinny body up and down and once again felt that a man of true talent doesn’t make a show of himself. “An eight-cylinder?” 

General Zhong: “…” 

“…A bike,” said Dr. Kou. 

Huang Jinchen’s eyes opened wide. He looked Kou Tong over again and felt that there was something especially familiar about this person—he was clearly even more of a freak than himself! As he thought this, he simply regretted that they hadn’t met earlier. So he looked tenderly at Kou Tong for a long time, then forced out a sentence: “I’ve met this brother before.” 

Kou Tong played along: “Bao-gege!” 

Huang Jinchen said: “Lin-didi!” 

General Zhong looked gloomily out the window at the bare wall, feeling that he was truly a little superfluous standing there. 

These two lowlifes hit it off from the start. When they had finished claiming a family tie like the Second Red Army joining the Fourth Red Army in Yan’an, they at last remembered that there was still a general surnamed Zhong beside them. Kou Tong gave a dry cough. “Instructor, this person is…” 

General Zhong coughed lightly. “This is a colleague who has been newly transferred to the base. I think that the two of you have some affinity for each other, so I was planning to transfer him to assist you in your work.” 

Kou Tong stared. “My work…” 

But General Zhong interrupted him. He laughed. “Now that I mention it, though you haven’t seen each other before, you have spoken. Kou Tong, this is that legendary gun, code name 11235, named Huang Jinchen. Do you still remember?” 

The improper smile vanished from Kou Tong’s face for a moment. Then his gaze shifted to Huang Jinchen. He paused, then put on a slightly complicated smile. “Friend, it’s you.” 

Huang Jinchen froze. Only one person had called him “friend.” In their final battle against Utopia, there had been a person standing in for General Zhong at the “final contact base.” Regardless of the firefight outside, or how each country’s armed forces were fighting an energy war, or the danger of the surroundings, that person had stood watch at the other end of the communicator with an amazing calm. Using Huang Jinchen’s eyes, based on all the information gathered about the Utopia anti-government organization’s leader, he had judged that person’s behavior step by step. 

In the end, you could say that perfectly removing the inhuman organization’s old man had been the result of the two of them teaming up. 

Huang Jinchen still remembered how, over the slightly poor signal of the communicator, that person had asked what his name was in a firm voice, and how he had said to him, “Don’t worry. This time you won’t be out on your mission alone. I’ll be here the whole time and do my best to protect you.” 

After over a decade on his own, already death-proof, when even he suspected that he was a robot, these words had seemed to suddenly inject him with a pulse. 

For a moment, Huang Jinchen had even felt himself form the mistaken impression that there really was someone standing behind him. Looking at Kou Tong, he found that the person on the other end of the communicator actually would have looked like this. 

In a flash, it seemed like he had known him for a long time. 

“Handsome,” Huang Jinchen said, leaning against the door and throwing him a coquettish gaze, “you never did tell me your contact information.” 

Kou Tong, keeping his balance with difficulty, covered his face with both hands and “bashfully” said, “I’m not the kind of person to casually go along with anyone.” 

Huang Jinchen immediately brought out the wooden guitar he was carrying on his back, showing himself off like an old-fashioned high schooler from the 80s of the last century. “Well, do you think you can casually go along with me?” 

Kou Tong turned his head and said, “General Zhong, copy my personnel file and send it to him. That has not only my contact information and usual email, there’s also my residential circumstances and the women of dubious character composing eighteen generations of my ancestors. I, Kou Tong, am currently single and unmarried. Carryings-on are welcome. Serious inquiries only.” 

Huang Jinchen laughed aloud. He felt that it had been many years since he had been so happy. He pounded Kou Tong on the shoulder. “Handsome, you really are both low and capable, truly too suited to my tastes.” 

His fist set Kou Tong swaying where he stood, nearly plopping down onto the ground. He felt that he couldn’t quite digest this meal. Quickly, he politely said, “The same to you, you’re too generous.” 

General Zhong suddenly felt that…he had actually made a rather inappropriate arrangement. He could only give another forceful dry cough. Even he felt that it was as though he had swallowed a chicken feather. Then he took out a folder. “Dr. Kou, I’ve also come here because I want to ask for your help with a little matter.” 

“As expected, suspicious folks bearing gifts always have a hidden agenda.” Kou Tong’s expression twisted, suddenly becoming delicate. He didn’t repeat the Peter Pan vitality with which he had hopped over on one leg to snatch the wallet. He stumbled back to sit on the hospital bed, bent over, and cried out, “Instructor, my leg hurts.” 

“It’ll be good to have something to take your mind off it—Jinchen, go over and sit.” 

Kou Tong unwillingly took the file. “Instructor, I have a crippled leg. When I enter the Projector, if there’s carnage, will I be reimbursed for an on-the-job injury?”

“We’ll treat you if you’re injured and bury you if you’re dead,” General Zhong said very responsibly. 

Dr. Kou sighed lengthily. Huang Jinchen felt that, sitting there all twisted up, he looked like an eggplant struck by the frost. But the moment he opened the file, this insolent, seemingly boneless doctor’s expression suddenly became grave and serious, just as if he had a split personality. 

So he couldn’t resist drawing close to look, too. He found that the file was a biographical sketch of an old soldier named Yao Shuo. This person seemed to be entirely plastered in medals, covered in glory from beginning to end. 

“This is an old comrade-in-arms of mine,” General Zhong said. “I’ve felt that he’s been a little off lately, and I’ve managed to convince him to come have a chat with you.” 

“Oh?” Kou Tong hadn’t finished reading yet. He raised his head and looked at him. “What’s the matter with him?” 

“I couldn’t say. I just feel he’s a little off.” General Zhong took out a cigarette and looked at Kou Tong. “Can I smoke in your hospital room?” 

“Yes,” Kou Tong said happily, “the nurse isn’t here. Give me one, too.” 

“Get out. The patient should behave.” General Zhong glared at him. “Lao Yao used to be a very sociable, very smooth person. Lately the atmosphere has been too tense. Everyone’s been out of contact because of the Utopia business, and then I was in the hospital for a while. He came to see me.

“As soon as he came in, I felt that something was off. Here was a person who used to love to laugh so much, but apart from forcing a couple of laughs when he came in, he kept his face all tense afterwards, and his gaze drifted. He couldn’t say a few sentences without his mind wandering. I asked him what was wrong, and he didn’t answer, only said he was fine.” General Zhong leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and blew out a smoke ring. “Then, he had hardly said anything when suddenly he looked at me and came out with, ‘Listen, didn’t you get here because you were asking for it? Who will be grateful to you for getting injured? All right, they were fighting to the death, but why did you get in on the action? In your position, going into battle yourself, aren’t you a stupid cunt? Who will remember you? That final contact base of yours can’t be exposed in public. Who knows about you? Who will thank you?’” 

General Zhong frowned. After a while, he finally continued: “At first I thought he was just in a bad mood. Then, a couple of days later, someone suddenly told me that he was divorcing his wife. When I asked about it, it turned out that it was because he had flown into a rage at his son and smashed an ornamental copper paperweight over the child’s head. It took eight stitches. He was all bloody when they brought him to the hospital. If I didn’t understand Lao Yao, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but I know he isn’t that kind of person. He’s always been a model husband, and a model dad, the kind of person who wouldn’t let the moon shine if his son wanted the stars. How could he do such a thing?” 

Kou Tong was listening earnestly. Now, he suddenly asked, “Have you talked to him?” 

“I did,” General Zhong said. “He didn’t want to listen to me. Two sentences, and he got mad. When he was mad, he started attacking me with words, saying that I was a meddling busybody. I couldn’t understand him at all. It was like all those years of friendship had been for nothing.” 

“Wait, then how did you convince him to come see me?” Kou Tong frowned. 

General Zhong shook his head in some exasperation. “That’s just what I wanted to tell you. He’s always refused to seek the aid of a psychologist, and he argued logically that psychologists were a crowd of pedants who couldn’t even understand the human heart as well as he could. They were no use. So I tricked him and said that there’s a batch of trial runs for some equipment at the base that needs a group of volunteers to help, but with the base’s special circumstances, there aren’t many people who know of it, so I can only ask internal personnel to help.” 

Kou Tong rubbed the center of his brow. He closed the folder. “All right, I understand.” 

General Zhong forced a smile. “Thank you for your hard work…both of you.” 

Now, Huang Jinchen at last put in a word: “Lao Zhong, this special medical treatment expert group of ours, what does it actually do? It doesn’t sound to me like it’s cutting people open.” 

“It’s cutting their heads open,” Kou Tong said shamelessly. 

Huang Jinchen crossed his arms and said indecently, “What? I really didn’t know that grown men like us had so many complicated little thoughts that we needed to have psychologists brought in to comfort us.” 

“Only occasionally.” General Zhong stood up and patted Kou Tong on the shoulder. “Rest up. I’ll contact you when the time comes—you two will still be free most of the time.” 

“What will I do when I’m free?” Huang Jinchen asked with interest. 

General Zhong said, “Go on a scenic tour.” 

Kou Tong said, “Eat, drink, and make merry.” 

The two of them spoke almost simultaneously. General Zhong laughed, said goodbye, and turned to go. 

Huang Jinchen instantly felt that he had found a cushy job.